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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter August 7, 2012

Obesity, insulin resistance, and the risk of an elevated alanine aminotransferase activity in the Korean adolescent population

  • Seung Ha Park , Nae Yun Heo , Jong Ha Park , Tae Oh Kim , Sung Yeun Yang , Young Soo Moon , Chang Hoon Kim , Ki Tae Suk , Dong Joon Kim EMAIL logo and Heon Young Lee

Abstract

Background: It is unclear to what extent insulin resistance (IR) modulates the association linking obesity to alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity elevation.

Methods: We measured the homeostatic model assessment for IR (HOMA-IR) in 1591 participants aged 12–18 years from the 2008 to 2009 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Results: Overweight adolescents had an odds ratio of 7.23 [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 4.33–12.10] for an elevated ALT activity compared with normal-weight adolescents, and the corresponding risk was 23.62 (95% CI, 12.98–42.98) in obese adolescents. Adjustments for other participant factors did not substantially affect the results. The addition of the HOMA-IR data decreased the estimate for overweight adolescents by 27% and for obese adolescents, the decrease was 47%. Both obesity and IR markers remained independent predictors of outcome.

Conclusions: The greater the obesity level, the more that IR contributes to the association between obesity and an elevated ALT activity.


Corresponding author: Dong Joon Kim, MD., Department of Internal Medicine, Hallym University College of Medicine, #153 Gyo-dong, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do 200-704, Republic of Korea, Phone: +82 33 240 5646, Fax: +82 33 241 8064

Received: 2012-3-24
Accepted: 2012-7-11
Published Online: 2012-08-07
Published in Print: 2012-10-01

©2012 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston

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